(CNN) - The same day the Supreme Court issued a high-stakes ruling on a controversial part of President Barack Obama's health care law, a new national survey indicates confidence in the high court is at a record low, as Americans' trust in all three branches of government has fallen.

The release of a Gallup poll Monday coincides with the high court's decision that the government can't require that closely held companies pay for some types of contraceptives for its employees.

Washington (CNN) - Just 40% of Americans know which political party controls the Senate and the House of Representatives, according to a national poll.

A Pew Research Center survey released Thursday also indicates that about a third of the public can correctly name which party controls one of the two chambers of Congress, with 28% coming up completely empty.

Washington (CNN) - Talk about something you don’t see very often anymore.

In an unusually strong bipartisan vote, the Senate overwhelmingly approved a rewrite of federal workforce training programs that are designed to improve job skills and drive down the unemployment rate.

Two weeks after House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's primary loss to a little-known and underfunded tea party challenger rocked the Republican Party, incumbent and mainstream GOP candidates came out on top in several high-profile primary showdowns.

(CNN) - The day before Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned in May, nearly 25 senators signed a letter calling for him to step down amid a widening scandal over delayed medical care for vets.

In the weeks before that, lawmaker after outraged lawmaker rose to denounce systemic problems at the sprawling agency that provides medical and other care to more than 8.5 million veterans. Reports of "cooked books," dying patients on waiting lists, and a warped management culture made headlines.

(CNN) – Longtime Rep. Don Young misused campaign funds and accepted improper gifts relating to hunting trips he took with his family and staff over the years, the House Ethics Committee concluded on Friday.

The panel found that the 21-term Alaska Republican broke its rules when he used campaign funds for personal purposes and improperly accepted gifts for 15 trips between 2001-13.

Washington (CNN) – A new round of scrutiny hit the IRS on Monday as senators from both parties summoned the agency’s chief to Capitol Hill, one House committee set up a new investigative hearing and another issued a subpoena for the head of the agency to appear.

This came after the IRS announced that up to two years of e-mails from former agency manager Lois Lerner were destroyed when her hard drive crashed in 2011. Lerner ran the IRS division that oversaw tax-exempt status and is a key figure in the investigation into why the agency targeted tea party and other groups. The IRS says it has worked to recover the Lerner e-mails by searching through the accounts of dozens of employees who may have corresponded with her.